Tag Archives: Japan

If you’re like me, then you’re probably one or both of these two things:

You’re thinking about working in Japan one day (but perhaps aren’t a computer science major…)

You want to enhance your Japanese vocabulary

If you ever want to work for a Japanese company, especially as a fresh graduate right out of college, then you might find yourself having to take something called the SPI適性検査, which is one of the most popular “recruitment aptitude tests” in Japan. While many learners aiming for Japanese company employment might assume that having JLPT skills at Level 1 would be sufficient for general job searching in Japan, this is in fact not the case in the beginning of the process. Let me explain.

Welcome to your worst Japanese nightmare

When you apply to a typical Japanese company, assuming you have no direct connections that would boost you straight through to the interview process, after listening to a general info session (can be online but quite often in person) you first submit an エントリーシート (entry sheet), which is a one-page form that includes your name, university, and perhaps a small box for your 志望動機 (reason for applying). When you submit this form in person—such as at a career fair with Japanese companies, including CFN, Mynavi, Works Global Japan, Top Career, etc—you will hand write it in Japanese, so be sure to practice writing Kanji just enough to answer the questions that are typically asked. Memorizing your 志望動機 down to the letter is probably not a bad strategy.

If the company is interested in talking to you further, you will likely receive instructions to take a WEB検査, or online test. If you’re lucky you’ll skip right to the interview where you can show off your Japanese and interviewing skills, but there are plenty of large corporations in Japan (Softbank, for example), that require the test first. And while some companies, such as Rakuten and most foreign investment banks have their own English version, most companies have it in Japanese only. In this blog post, Ms. Melfi sums up the test quite well:

Imagine having to take the JLPT1 in 30 minutes, with two more 30 minute sections on logic and math. […]

Unequivocally, the JLPT1 does not qualify you as ready for the Job Hunting process.

In other words, if you just passed the JLPT level 1 and are feeling rather good about yourself for barely squeaking by, be prepared to be pummeled by the typical web test (SPI test) that job searchers are required to take. Sure, if you were able to skip the test and get right to the interview and show your employer that you’re perfectly competent at speaking, and could look up unknown job-specific vocabulary as it comes your way, the world would be a perfect place. But it’s not, and the SPI, in my opinion, is a big unspoken roadblock that prevents non-native Japanese from entering Japanese companies, despite their constant pleas for “more global talent.”

According to a friend of a friend, he was asked by a Japanese company to take the test, but he responded that as a non-native Japanese person the test had no meaning, and that he should not have to take it. In reply, the company agreed with him, moved him right along to the interview process, and then he got the job. I can’t say this is typical, or even if the story is true, but if you don’t feel ready for the test this might be a nice hail mary move to try out.

At any rate, just because the test is hard does not mean it’s impossible. It’s a Japanese test, which means, for the most part, it’s perfectly study-able. If you have come this far in your Japanese study to consider applying to a Japanese company, then you can get over this as well. It just requires you to change what you’ve been studying.

Enter the Antonyms (and Synonyms)

When studying Japanese, my vocabulary generally comes from sentences and vocabulary lists that correspond to something I’m reading. I believe this is a fairly practical way to go about learning new words, since I’m learning things that directly relate to what I want to understand. For the SPI test, however, a decent portion of the 国語 (Japanese language) section revolves around identifying antonyms (反対語) and synonyms (同意語), which is something I simply have never done before in Japanese. Thankfully, this is probably the part of the test that is easiest to study: rote memorize enough antonym/synonym pairs and that should mean a decent shot at doing well.

For instance, combining the lists of 同意語 (synonyms) provided on both of these sites, I’m able to compile a list of 238 vocabulary words. Each word’s reading and definition is listed, along with its synonym provided in parenthesis. If for each word in Kanji you can quickly recall it’s reading, meaning, and corresponding synonym, you should be good to go.

Some of these words are not especially difficult, such as 有名 and 当然, but being able to point out from a list of words which has the closest meaning in about 15 seconds is likely something that requires a bit of studying, hence the hefty list above. Using the links above you could compile a similar (but perhaps even longer) list for antonyms as well.

After antonyms and synonyms, the next part of the Japanese language section of the SPI test involves reading short passages and answering 1-3 questions about them, often in less than a minute or 90 seconds. I wish I could say I had an ultimate trick or study method for this portion of the test for us non-native speakers (as reading speed is not exactly an easily upgraded skill), but purchasing an SPI test-prep book and going through questions is likely your best chance. Something else you may want to try is to estimate how fast you read English, and then give yourself that amount of time to answer a JLPT level 1 reading passage. Obviously you’ll be hampered by the time limit, but you may discover what works for you when trying to rush through a Japanese passage.

Finally, there is also a math section in the SPI test, which isn’t terribly difficult (think back to the SAT or ACT if you’re from the United States), but is made difficult because, again, it’s in Japanese. What that means, then, is that additional practice is required. In a future blog I hope to go over some math vocabulary in Japanese (which I have been meaning to study myself), something is not covered in typical Japanese language classes as far as I know.

While aimlessly searching the Internets as I so often do, I came across a Japanese Kanji test aimed at Japanese natives. The quiz purports to test “difficult readings” of certain Kanji, and it doesn’t disappoint. Click here to check it out.

The game is simple enough: a word will appear on screen and you have to enter the correct reading within ten seconds, in Hiragana, to play. There are a grand total of five levels, with five questions each. In other words, get 25 questions correct in a row and you win. Answer a question wrong and the game ends.

Let’s begin:

Quick, you’ve only got 5 seconds left! What’s the answer?

It’s おかみ, of course, meaning a female proprietress of some kind, such as a restaurant or inn owner. But you knew that, right? Perhaps not. Let’s try again.

Haha, why that’s しにせ (although ろうほ is also acceptable), meaning a trustworthy or long-established store that has been passed down for generations. I learned that in my freshman year Japanese 101 class, didn’t you?

I hope my deep sarcasm by now has penetrated through the Internet and into your brain, as these are not “everyday” words, or even words that an average Japanese person would be likely to know without a little effort. And remember that these are level 1 words, with the words getting (supposedly) harder with each level.

The great thing about this particular Kanji test is that it is popular among Japanese internet folks, with quite a few videos appearing online (check out a YouTube search for 漢字テスト) where Japanese people attempt the test in real time, recording their thought process and reactions. I find these fun to watch. For example, the following video is titled “A student preparing for (college) examinations attempts the ogre-level Kanji Test (so hard you’ll laugh)”

He gets fairly far and knows quite a few words without much thinking, but there are still more than a few words in the test that are simply not common knowledge.

The next video (link below) is from Niconico, a popular video sharing site in Japan. In this case the female test-taker in question is, let’s just say, a bit “dumber” than average. You may need a free account to view the video, but I promise you it will be worth it. Be sure to enable Japanese language comments so you can watch her get a Japanese verbal smack-down in real time.

At about 3 and a half minutes into the video the girl taking the test proudly exclaims that the answer is かいせき, only to be completely wrong. The comments that follow include things like「ドヤ顔で間違えんなwww」and 「せめてかいせつじゃないかw」, which mean “don’t act all confident and then get it wrong lmao” and “at the very least you could have guessed kaisetsu lol” respectively (my usage of “lol” and “lmao” here is pretty loose, I’m just translating based on the number of w’s, which indicate laughter in text form).

Of course, if you’re like me, meaning you’re not native in Japanese and not some insane Kanji master dude named Bret Mayer who was the first non-Chinese/Korean person to pass the Kanji Kentei Level 1, then you probably won’t do much better than the girl in the Niconico video. If you attempt the test in front of your Japanese friends or teachers, chances are you’ll only hear things like 漢字が難しいね (Kanji sure is hard) to soothe your pain, which of course it will not.

So how do you beat this test? Well, the obvious answer is “study Kanji,” but getting to the level necessary to answer the kind of questions on a test like this would take years. Unless, of course, you studied all the questions and just all the questions on the test instead.

In which case, Behold! See the following list (warning, it’s 504 vocabulary words):

Just to be clear, I didn’t play the quiz a million times to compile this list. Rather, using a simple .swf (Flash file) decompiler I extracted the list of words used in the quiz and added English definitions for each of them. While it’s easy to look up the definition of a word on your own, I used a combination of not only EDICT, but also 英和／英和辞典, 国語辞典, 類語辞典, and Wikipedia to come to a “more accurate” English definition, or at least one I understood based on the dictionary-provided example sentences and explanations. Your millage may vary, and looking up example sentences or Wikipedia articles is probably your best bet in order to come to your own understanding of an unknown word.

If you were to actually memorize all the words in the list (all 504 of them), you would then be able to totally ace the Kanji test, thereby freaking the shit out of any Japanese person you know as you casually blast through a list of extremely difficult words without breaking a sweat. I know I would spend the hours necessary just for that reaction.

Finally, while the two videos above featured Japanese people struggling with the test, I did find one person who breezed through the test (multiple times) with extreme ease. Some people are scary…

I ended up finding this guy’s blog where he mentions filming himself taking the test—see this link. It turns out he likes to blog about studying Kanji specifically for the Kanji Kentei, and keeps detailed notes about his progress. Not only that, he’s also rather good at Rubik’s cubes, which should clue you in that the guy enjoys memorizing stuff and is good at it too. In short: he’s a bit better than the average Japanese guy when it comes to Kanji. Fear not.

The golden rule of English teaching pedagogy in Japan: The more blond your hair and pointy your nose, the better you are at teaching English. Also, and saying "OH" in English is hilarious.

As the Asia Times has previously reported, Japanese people aren’t so hot at learning English compared to their East Asian peers:

Indeed, the average score of Japanese candidates sitting for the Test of English as a Foreign language (TOEFL) ranks lowest among all Asian nations except North Korea. In fact, Japan ranks just below Myanmar.

Now that’s pretty bad, but perhaps just using the TOEFL isn’t a good measure of English ability? What about using the results form another test by Education First where Japan scores fairly high (ranked 14 out of 44) rather than bottom of the pack? But at the same time, the Education First test apparently does little to test speaking and listening skills.

Obviously, then, what the people of Japan need to work on is English communication. Talking with Westerners. Speaking both with and like other native English speakers. Learning about western culture. Making that Western culture a real part of their lives. You get the picture. If they want to speak like us, they need to be like us.

Clearly.

—

So I decided to do some research of English learning resources targeted at Japanese speakers. And while I had originally planned on doing some real, serious research that would uncover the dark conspiracy that is keeping Japanese people from learning English, that quickly ended when I found a certain DVD on “Dangerous English” by American-born gaijin talentDave Spector:

You might be wondering what in the world the Japanese would consider “Dangerous English.” Luckily, there’s a wonderful trailer available on Youtube. Enjoy.

If you don’t know Japanese, the premise of the entire DVD is pretty simple: it’s nothing but a bunch of puns from either Japanese words that sound like dirty English words (or occasionally, from terrible mispronunciations of English words that the Japanese speaker can’t say correctly). For example, all the men in the restaurant in the video around 3:30 start dropping their pants after the girl makes a certain, unfortunate pronunciation error on the word “cook.”

And putting aside the issue of a large number of men dropping their pants in a public restaurant around a Japanese girl, the over-the-top stereotypes of American are also pretty hilarious. Suffice to say, I wanted to find the whole video—I couldn’t let my research on English learning material for Japanese people end with a infomercial! Since Amazon doesn’t ship the DVD outside of Japan, I managed to find a great solution—online video rentals.

Unlike some other video rental sites online, Videx doesn’t seem to be super-restrictive on what country you’re from—at the very least, non-Japanese IPs are able to access and purchase content—which is better that most Japanese-targeted sites. So making one of the strangest rental purchases of my life, I downloaded and watched the full “Dangerous English” video.

It was… interesting. Basically, the same stuff as on the trailer, but more of it. I didn’t feel totally satisfied in my purchase until the end of the video, though, when we the viewers are treated to “Top 5” lists of curse words in English for both men and women. Here’s the list for women:

Top 5 curse words for women. The bubble reads, "Say it out loud!"

Gotta love that flawless proofreading that only those suns of bitches down in Japan can so consistently provide.

And, the list for men:

Top 5 for men. Which one of these words is not like the other...?

I can’t say I use “cock titty balls sucker” as much as the other words on the list, but perhaps I’ll have to make an effort lest I be labeled as un-American.

The takeaway from the video was a dual message, one about American culture, and one about the English language in America. First, that all Americans carry guns, and therefore talking with an American is dangerous, as you’ll be at a high risk for murder should you choose to do so. The gun stereotype sounds pretty over-the-top, but you’d be surprised. I once had a conversation with a Japanese girl:

In the end, she seemed pretty disappointed. I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe I was actually American after that. I didn’t have an American flag hanging up in my room either after all!

The second message in the vide about language was that adding the word “fuck” every 2-3 words is a proper, American tradition. Depending on what part of the country you’re in, I can’t exactly disagree with that, though.

—

Although I have gotten offtrack after writing this post, one possible conclusion is: I would hesitate to recommend Dave Spector’s DVD for the serious learning of English.

As yesterday was Valentine’s day, I’ve decided to share some advice on how to woo the Japanese ladies. Because I obviously have lots of experience in this field, right? And because if you follow my rigorously-tested PUA-style tips, you’ll suddenly become a Charisma Man yourself, capable of attracting J-girls like flies are attracted to syrupy, sugary mounds of goodness, right?

Well, no, not really.

But, one thing to recognize here is that the Charisma Man in the comic above has pretty poor Japanese. All he does is use the 私・・は・・です formation, which is pretty much the first thing you pick up in Japanese 101. Don’t you want to be just a bit more awesome than that? Don’t you want to be ready to bust out some really syrupy, sugary, chocolate-filled nuggets of Japanese in order to impress the ladies?

Of course!

So the best places I’d recommend searching to go find such lines would be anything that isn’t a “How to Pick Up Japanese Girls” or “How to speak Dirty Japanese” book. Because while those sorts of books may havesome value, the only way they also have any sizable amount of content is because most of the content is terrible. Filler. No longer used by anyone in Japan…ever. And besides, if you’re buying books like that, let’s be honest: your Japanese probably isn’t exactly up to snuff either.

So where do you find good “pick up lines” in Japanese? Well, I’ll take the AJATT approach on this one: straight out of genuine Japanese media. Anime, Manga (especially Shojou, I bet), Jdramas—take your pick.

“You may not know this, but I love you…I want to be with you all the time.”

「うっかりするとどうしてお前と付き合ってるのかわからなくなってしまうけれど…理由なんか必要無いくらいお前が好きだ。」

“Sometimes I don’t know why I’m dating you. But I love you so much, I don’t need a reason.”

The first line may have a bit too much cheese for the average person, but the second one—the one about not needing a reason—really just straight up owns. The girl’s (Senjogahara’s) reaction is therefore appropriate: 「ヤバすぎ。超絶かっこいい」”Oh no…so incredibly cool.”

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann episode 8

But perhaps you’re too cool to spin off a line like that. Maybe you need a moreTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann-type response. If so, Kamina has you covered. After going in for a kiss, his response to Yoko is:

「おまえ・・・. 10倍返しだ。 戻ったら、10倍返しだ。 」

You… I’ll repay that… I’ll repay that ten times over

Yoko laughs at Kamina after he answers, but come on, you’re at least as cool as Kamina, right? You should be able to handle the delivery no problem.

Moteki episode 4

Or maybe you’re just looking for some good confessionJapanese to help you settle the deal? Girl been giving you a hard time, but you want to show just how romantic you can be once and for all? Then perhaps a typical line from Moteki might be what you’re looking for:

「好きだよ。俺の人生の中で一番好きだったよ。今でも・・今でも好きだよ。」
I love you. You’re the one I loved the most in my life. Even now… even now I still love you.

I have to admit that all of the lines here aren’t delivered without a nice helping of romantic cheese. Perhaps J-Girls are into that—the straightforward confession of love, or perhaps the simple raw emotional power of saying “I love you” itself (cue a slow procession of ha ha ha’s here). At the same time, though, I can’t say I’m unhappy during these scenes either—after all, watching awkward characters have awkward encounters with one another without either one being able to actually say what they’re feeling (I’m looking at you, Freeter, Ie o Kau) is just painful after the first time. I get it, you’re awkward but you like each other—get to the good stuff already!

That’s all for now—but any love-related Japanese media should have plenty of lines for the grabbing. Not to mention I do have a copy of Love Plus sitting around my house somewhere…

For example when I learned the meaning of “ATM,” which stands for “I’m fed up with my stupid dad,” I was very shocked. I’m deplored at this growing tendency not to honor one’s father! After all, anyone else reading “ATM” would simply think it means “Automated Teller Machine.”

Not to mention other abbreviations that have appeared like “MK5” (I’ve five seconds away from blowing my top), MM (seriously pissed off), etc, which reveal just how little patience today’s youth seems to have. With over 400 abbreviations that use English characters, we now have published mini-dictionary’s like “KY Japanese” that compile these phrases. I hope nothing happens to destroy the Japanese language.

It seems as if proper, well-written Japanese is no longer important in Japan today. Instead of pandering to what the youth are doing, how about adults lead by trying to speak with correct Japanese?

Honestly, reading this kind of article is kind of cute—especially since you’ve got the same kind of old biddies here in America trying to crack down on the decay of the English language too. While I don’t think I’d be too happy to see “lol” and “omg” used in actual essays in English, it seems as if the old fart that wrote the article above is against the use of abbreviations in all forms of communication, with a desire to bring back “correct” (literally: beautiful) Japanese.

Good luck with that.

The only people who use “correct” Japanese anymore are old housewives in Japanese dramas and the entire cast of Winter Sonata(which, not so surprisingly, drew its massive fan base in Japan from women ages 50-70. Go figure). And they sound weird too. Seriously, don’t try to emulate them, unless you’re trying to impress 63 year old women from Osaka. And something tells me that’s the last group on your mind.

The book she mentions in the article “KY Japanese” appears to be this one (KY式日本語―ローマ字略語がなぜ流行るのか 0r “KY Japanese: Why have English Character Abbreviations become popular?). I haven’t read it, but it looks fairly interesting—I may try to pick it up in the future at some point.After all, searching for a good, serious treatment of Japanese abbreviations (especially in English) brought up only this article (Linguistic Innovations and Interactional Features of Casual Online Communication in Japanese), which has a nice, long academic title, but honestly doesn’t dive too deeply into anything one couldn’t gleam from simply reading 2ch for a few minutes. Big deal.

Also, KY Japanese has a funny 1-star review posted for it on Amazon:

雑学として気楽に読むなら問題ない。でも、間違った日本語を使っている人が読むと、もっと馬鹿になるよ。時間があったら、国語辞典を開いてほしい。

This is fine for miscellaneous information. But, if someone who already uses incorrect Japanese reads this, he’s just going to become stupider. If you have the time to read this, try opening up a real dictionary instead.

Gotta love it. Seriously, I can’t be the only one who goes through 1-star reviews of products (often of products I’ve already purchased and enjoyed) just to see what people can come up with to slam it. Must be some kind of sick masochism, perhaps.